Jagdish Chandra Bose was born in 1858 in Mymensingh (now Bangladesh). He had his education at Kolkata, Cambridge and London. He studied physical science in St.Xavier’s College, Kolkata, but he graduated in the natural science in England.

Then Bose joined Presidency College at Kolkata, as professor of physics. Most of his important physical and biological experiments were carried out at the Presidency College laboratory.

Among Bose’s findings, which won him world wide acclaim were (i) Plants, like human beings, possess the power of response; (ii) a plant swings abnormally like a drunkard, if treated with an alcoholic substance, and it becomes normal when the

cause is removed; (iii) the roots are not the sole media for procuring food for plants; (iv) plants have nerves, and they, too, feel pain when hurt; and (v) plant cells expand and contract like the heart in men and animals.

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Bose was not only a Biologist but also a Physicist. He can rightly be called the inventor of wireless telegraphy. In 1896, Guglielmo Marconi secured his first patent on wireless telegraphy. But one year before that, Bose had first demonstrated its functioning in public, in 1895. He was the first in the world to fabricate the device that generated microwaves of very short wave length. But his invention was not internationally recognized as the inventor of wireless telegraphy.

Bose had also invented several sensitive instruments. His ‘Crescigraph’ is an instrument used to measure the rate of growth of plant.

Bose was elected Fellow of the Royal Society in 1920, after London University awarded him the D.Sc.degree (without requiring his presence for an examination) on his thesis entitled on the Determination of the wavelength of Electrical Radiation by Diffraction of the wavelength of Electrical Diffraction Grating. He was offered Knighthood in England.

Bose founded in Kolkata the ‘Bose Institute’ in 1917. He passed away in 1937.